The Best Books: Expedition, Steve Backshall

A return to exploring as it was, in the good old days. Or as close to it as you get in our modern jet-shrunk, digitally mapped, satellite photographed, tourist-travelled, economy-centric world. Harking back to a time where you really didn't know quite what to expect from your journey. When journey times were quoted to the nearest few days or weeks, rather than the nearest minute - and then complained about when not exactly right. When evacuation was a medical procedure, not a hope if anything went awry.

The sort of exploring in other words that I, along with many others I daresay, have dreamed of since childhood, but never had a realistic hope of engaging in. Do I have any greater hopes of doing so as a result of reading this book? Perhaps not. 

I have admired Steve Backshall's approach to things for a while now. He is unusual in the arena of television presenters that he still engages in the getting your hands dirty side of exploration and adventure. He is also unusual in his combining both the knowledge and expertise of the natural world, and ability in the graft of getting to see it in its natural habitat - no matter how remote or inhospitable. 

He also seeks to encourage a younger generation to do the same through his Deadly 60 programmes among others, and his involvement in the Scouts programme, something which I greatly benefited from as a youngster myself. 

I am confident that if we are to make a significant difference in reducing the impact of the human race on the planet then we need to start getting young people more interested in it. Unless they are interested in it, they will not love it enough to give a damn about it. And when they start caring about it, they will pressure policy makers and corporations, governments and industry to start making the necessary changes, or rather stop turning a blind eye to the issues. 

Slightly off tangent, but what this book did for me is remind me of some of the original excitement I had, and still have, albeit buried a little deeper these days, about the natural world as a source of excitement. A source, the best source of the unknown, the untried, the untested, the new, the ground breaking, the earth shattering, the fascinating and the mind blowing. It reminded me as I shadowed Steve on his adventures, that behind the book study, the degrees and the desk job as a conservationist, that my admiration for the natural world goes right back to the little boy who doesn't actually know for sure what is around the corner, over the hill, or under the water, but is pretty confident that it will be cool. 

Mr Backshall has had an opportunity in the endeavours described in the book to live childhood dreams, not just his own, but those of many hundreds and thousands of others. But he has also reminded me, and hopefully the collective 'us' of his readers that we too can find fascination in the unknowns presented by the natural world. And hopefully, going one step beyond, this along with his other efforts will be a small piece in the puzzle of reminded us as a civilisation, that it is worth looking after and protecting. 

And if that wasn't enough, its a gripping tale of adventure, friendship and danger. Definitely worth a read. 

Richard

Plans for 2019

Soo... 2019. How did that happen?!

As I've already mentioned (here), 2018 was a good year. About a year ago I wrote about my plans for the year ahead (click here). I didn't really stick too closely to those, but it gave me some targets and set me up at the beginning of the year to try and use the time wisely. So this is take 2 - another years worth of plans to be changed as needed, but to set the tone for the year.

Before I get into the exciting plans, something I would like to plan on is putting more conservation themed content into my pictures and blog posts - it's there in my day to day life, but perhaps because it is such a big part of my routine I often end up writing about other things. To me 'adventure' is really just a way to increase my enthusiasm and experience of the natural world around me, and a desire to conserve it is the natural result. I can't visit a mountain or a river or a wetland and appreciate it's natural beauty, or harshness, or diversity without in turn thinking "other people need to see / learn about / experience this for themselves" and "I need to make sure this is looked after". So I need to reflect that more in what I am sharing. A bit more of that sort of thing later on.

Adventure plans then. Pretty tame compared to many peoples; no international travel, no really high cost, long duration trips, just old school, relatively low cost, low complexity fun.
- March (probably) will contain a 'boys adventure' with my brothers, all 6 of them (including my brother-in-law) to mid Wales. To replace in part our delayed Three Peaks attempt last year. Mid Wales is an area I visited often last year, and an area I will keeping going back to - I love it over there.
- April: Extended family reunion in southern Scotland. We try to hold these every other year, and I've been looking forward to this since the last one finished!
- May: Re-scheduled family trip to the Isle of Skye. When we looked into it for last summer we were put off by all the accounts of how touristy it gets in the peak season. I am very excited about this, it will be my first trip to the Isle of Skye and will tick off a bucket list destination for me.
- June: Hopefully the full Hadrian's Wall path. 85 ish miles across the UK from coast to coast. This is another 'wanted-to-do-it-for-years' item. I haven't really looked into the plans for this yet, so I will need to figure out the specifics but I am looking forward to making it work somehow.
- Maybe another Snowdonia trip at some point later in the year, but that is TBC.

Is that it? I think it is at present. There are gaps through the year which can be filled with other bits and pieces. 'Micro-adventures' will be sprinkled throughout. Beach trips with the children, early morning wanderings round Cannock Chase before work, family walks, cycling to work instead of driving, sledging (if we get any decent snow), maybe even canoeing to work once or twice, plenty of options. In many ways these smaller, day to day 'adventures' will be more important. I fully subscribe to the thinking of Alastair Humphreys (look him up if you've never heard of him) that living adventurously is more about little things on a regular basis, than one off big trips or exotic travel. But also because these will be where my children learn about living adventurously, and appreciating the beautiful world around them. Those trips are where that desire to protect what they have come to appreciate, which stems from a love of what they have seen, will develop.


There is learning to be done too.
- I'm hoping to do some more water based stuff this year, possibly a canoeing / kayaking course of some sort to increase my current (very low) skill level to match my (pretty high) enthusiasm level.
- I have shelves of books to read which I would like to make more time for this year, leaving Youtube and social media behind for a bit and focusing on more tangible 'content' (does anyone else not like that word very much?). I'll try and increase the number of 'The Best Book' reviews I post on here.
- I'd like to do more with my website, share more through it, expand it a bit, make more use of it generally.

There is also the back ground stuff. For example, the home office (not THAT Home Office you understand) and / or Man Cave which I have been talking about since we moved into our current home nearly 7 years ago. This year needs to be the year that I make some progress on that. Rhino, my adventure wagon and workhorse needs a little bit of TLC - on an adventure trip last year I managed to kill the alternator with ( I assume) some water which was a little on the deep side for him. He is fixed, but I need to make sure that doesn't happen again - I will write about the story of that at some point.
In fact, he really needs to feature on this blog more often than he currently does.

Finally, I would really like to be a bit more proactive on getting these messages out to people. I don't really know how that is going to take shape yet, but I need to pull my finger out and figure it out this year. Maybe offering to talk in schools or help out on Duke of Edinburgh Awards or something like that. Who knows.

In any event, I intend it to be a full year, and going by the fact that a whole month of it has already passed me by that side of things is well on track

Richard

'The Best Books' - Robert McFarlane: The Wild Places

Reading is a luxury I don't get in large quantities these days - work, family, church, part time work (glorified hobbies), photography - they all take their chunk of time. As a kid I used to read loads and when we first got married, before I started University, we both used to read loads together - probably because we couldn't afford to do much else! These days what would have been my typical reading time - the period between going to bed and falling asleep - is often so short that reading the blurb in one go would be a struggle.

Anyway - that slightly off topic waffle goes to explain why it took me nearly two years to finish reading this book, but it was certainly worth persevering!

I'd been aware of Robert Macfarlane as an author for a while but not had an opportunity to read any of his books until a few years ago when I requested a few for a Christmas present (or Birthday... I can't actually remember!). Thereafter I started reading it in fits and spurts as time allowed, which often meant while I was away from home on trips - working in the woods, holidays visiting family and so on - when the normal routines which fill up your day were disrupted enough to free up a bit of time in the day. These are also the times when I am most likely to be able to spare some time for adventure, exploration and time spent out of doors in the peace that the natural world provides, either as a family or occasionally solo. 

And this is the core of the 'The Wild Places' narrative. It is certainly something that resonates with me - an exploration of the last places in the UK which can still be considered as wild, what an adventure! I'm lucky enough to be familiar with a few of the places he visited in the writing of the book. I even read the chapter about coastal wildness - which recounts a visit to Orfordness on the Suffolk coast - the night after a micro-adventure of my own in that area. My in-laws live just a few miles from Shingle Street, the little hamlet where the spit fades away and joins the North Sea. My brother in law had recently acquired a set of inflatable canoes and had been looking for a chance to try them out. Being mid-summer we made the most of the long evening and stole away for a few hours to try the new toys. The sunset canoe expedition which followed is a fond memory which I have written about before and took us up river toward Orford flanked by Orfordness to the East and the salt marsh on our landward side. We stopped briefly on the shingle to enjoy the views before heading back to our start point... a journey made far more difficult by the tide which had turned and was now racing in. We ended up walking back to the car, beaten by the speed of the inbound tide which rendered our inexperienced paddling completely useless as we struggled to not be drawn back inland, let alone making significant forward progress!

Suffolk was among the tamer landscapes and habitats described. Trips to islands, far flung, dune clad coastlines, limestone pavements and the hidden world within there shaded grykes, windswept moorland, barren mountains tops and snow covered bogs with the shadow of ancient woodland are all described in a detail which simultaneously transports you there in person while instilling a burning desire to make a similar pilgrimage to such places yourself . Ever since reading about a night Macfarlane spent on top of Ben Hope near the north coast of Scotland I have been trying to find a reason to justify the 1000 mile round trip to see it for myself. I haven't found a reason yet... but it isn't going anywhere, I'll figure it out someday. 

Of course his trip to the Hope Valley in Derbyshire to look for mountain hares is something I can recreate far more simply - given that my office is in the valley next door! That's not to belittle the experience, I still love to see the white hares bounding away, particularly when there is snow on the ground. So far this year I have been tied up with office work and haven't been up on the hills yet to see them in their winter coats. Luckily there is certainly good opportunity for me to do so in the new year and I'll be sure the make the most of it! It is easy to forgot - working there everyday - that to so many people in the UK coming to the Peak District is a way to escape the daily grind of work, whereas for me, it is work. 

The picture at the top of the page was taken while on a short trip of my own - I was on route to watch a rugby game in Cardiff with my family. Having spent many of my formative childhood years in Wales I made the most of the opportunity by travelling down through Wales revisiting old haunts. In the evening I travelled to the end of the Gower Peninsula on the south coast of Wales to watch the sun go down over Worms Head. It wasn't long after I had acquired my new camera and I attempted to capture the scene with a time lapse... it wasn't the greatest success (you can watch it here if you really want!), but it gave me an hour on a wild coastline to sit in beautiful surroundings and read about Macfarlane making a trip to a comparable coastline a few hundred miles north, only he was approaching from the sea.

I won't go on - discussions of this nature get my mind racing through the long list of places I'd like to visit. And while patience is certainly a virtue it's not one I'm blessed with in abundance. There is a real risk I will lay awake at night dreaming of the Cairngorms, or the Outer Hebrides, or the wild rivers of mid-wales where I swam as a child, or the rugged coastline of Devon where I camped as a teenager... you see what I mean!? Much like 'The Wild Places', my list of dream destinations are largely in the UK. We are blessed with such a diverse island, or series of islands, that international travel isn't necessary if you goal is to visit wild places. If you're struggling for ideas then reading 'The Wild Places' will certainly give you food for thought, in fact it will be a feast! 

Follow Robert Macfarlane on:

Twitter:       @RobGMacfarlane
Instagram:   @robgmacfarlane

Alternatively have a look at all of his books here at his Amazon author profile.

'The Best Books' - David Attenborough: Life on Air

Just a short post here. Like many people who have an urge to explore the natural world and seek out adventure, books have been a source of encouragement, inspiration and itchy feet since I was a child - (Television documentaries too, but to a lesser extent). I thought I might on occasion share examples of books which have really stood out to me in this field. What better place to start than with Sir David Attenborough's memoirs - Life on Air.

The man himself needs no introduction - he is a legend (and I don't apply that word as readily as most) in the world of natural history film making and global environmental conservation.

In a career spanning more than 60 years of conservation, exploration, education and research he has clocked up experiences it is unlikely anyone else will now be able to have in quite the same way and certainly not in the same quantity.

Not many people still working today can claim that in the line of their work they have encountered tribes never before contacted by the outside world; regions never before traversed by Europeans; filmed, photographed, recorded or documented species of animals, facets of primitive and ancient culture and relics of anthropological development never before seen by outsiders, never mind recorded, or documented. 

His world travel started in the days when multi-day boat journeys, propeller driven planes and locals with dug-out canoes were the norm. In these days of long-haul jets and global communications, where an appropriately large bank balance will get you pretty well anywhere pretty fast, it is perhaps difficult to imagine quite what these days were like. Maybe, just maybe, this was the golden age of travel - when everywhere was just about accessible, but only to those who really put in the effort. When the act of travel itself, at least outside of Western developed nations, was an adventure in and of itself. He travelled, by necessity, not because it looked good for television, by boat up rarely navigated rivers, on foot through unexplored tracts of rain forest, on horseback through wetlands in South America where vehicular transport was untenable - the list goes on and on. 

Nor was he merely a generic presenter reading someone else's script as seems to be the case so often nowadays. In fact he started his television career as a producer and director without appearing in the finished product. He studied Zoology and Paleantology at Cambridge, and at one point started to study part-time (alongside his work with the BBC) for a degree in Anthropology (this was interrupted by an administrative shake up which saw him promoted within the BBC). His main roles in front of the camera, for which he became a household name, were to come later and, its not an exaggeration to say, were to change the way natural history films were made.

He has been widely recognised for this work with, among other accolades, a Knighthood, too many honourary degrees to count and other industry awards in television, education and conservation, not to mention myriad newly discovered species named after him.   

However, he concludes his account with a description of why he continued, and indeed still continues, to produce these films and have these adventures:

"...I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from 

contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it."

I couldn't agree more and heartily recommend you live some adventures, and explore the natural world through the eyes of Sir Attenborough by reading 'Life on Air'.

Richard